Rebels hit where it hurts

CONOR Counihan’s dig into Pat Gilroy’s solar plexus was a playful one, but as the Cork manager was following his opposite number for media duties on Saturday night, there was little doubt it was a pregnant moment.

Sure, the exchange showed the great respect between the two men but Gilroy’s Dublin had donesomething only one team has ever done to Counihan’s Cork — put three goals past them in Croke Park.

Not since Kerry in the 2008 All-Ireland semi-final had Counihan’s defence coughed up that many green flags at HQ.

For a team that pride themselves on shutting out teams, the haemorrhage obviously didn’t sit well with Counihan.

“Conceding three goals at this level isn’t good enough and if you concede them you aren’t going to win games,” he said. “We created quite a few opportunities but we didn’t take them and clearly Dublin were the hungrier team. We have to go back and look at our performance and the attitude was questionable in a lot of quarters.

“Dublin were much hungrier and at times they broke from the back and we let them in too handy. In fairness, there was a lack of work-rate out the field and that left our backs isolated.”

For Gilroy, this win was special. Cork had been the only one of ‘The Big Three’ they hadn’t beaten under his tutelage. Another psychological millstone had been removed from their necks.

While Dublin’s goals — each of them assisted by their top marksman Bernard Brogan — were crucial so too was the concession of just three frees in the second half.

They starved Cork of their usual diet of scores from placed balls,preferring to screen Cork forwards rather than commit tackles. Cork’s conversion rate read 16 points from 40 attempts (13 wides) but several of their efforts were in vain, kicked as a last resort having failed to draw the free.

“We’ve been talking about this for the last six months — we knew it was something we had to really work on,” said Gilroy about Dublin’s low free concession count after the break. “We were disappointed with the number we gave away in the first half (11) and we made a big effort to give away less in the second half.”

Cork’s two frees marked a remarkable drop from the seven they pointed in Tralee last Sunday week, although they didn’t appear to need Daniel Goulding and Donncha O’Connor’s radar precision in the opening stages.

On three occasions inside the first 16 minutes they went two points ahead, with Pearse O’Neill taking advantage of lax defending to plant a couple of scores.

A Brogan free in the 17th minute brought Dublin to within a point (0-5 to 0-4), before his deft ground kick into Tomás Quinn’s path three minutes later teed him up for the opening goal.

It turned out to be a lead Dublin were reluctant to relinquish and, with Cork still reeling, Paddy O’Shea was again picking the ball from his net in the 23rd minute.

After a strong Declan Lally run, Kevin McManamon fed Brogan before offering himself for the return pass to round off a move that had most of the 35,028 crowd applauding.

Cork outscored Dublin by three points to one for the remainder of the half to go into the break just three points behind, 2-5 to 0-8. But for Stephen Cluxton’s point-blank save from O’Neill’s snapshot in the 34th minute, matters would have been even.

Getting within a point of Dublin twice in the first 10 minutes of the new half, Cork were kings of the ball but finding few avenues to get any closer to their opponents.

Any momentum gained was lost when Barry Cahill goaled in the 49th minute. Eoghan O’Gara, much to O’Neill’s ire (the Cork half-forward picked up a yellow card for kicking out at him), held off anumber of challenges to find Brogan whose square pass set up Cahill almost as a just reward for hisindustrious midfield play.

Another Cluxton save, this time from Goulding in the 51st minute, kept Dublin on their toes but Cork were running out of ideas. Brogan strung three frees together before he sent over an immaculate left-footed point to make it 3-11 to 0-12 with nine minutes to go.

Patrick Kelly responded but then James McCarthy, echoing Kevin Moran, drilled over a piercing long-range kick shortly after.

What followed was merely processional. Cork added a few more points but it was substitute Bryan Cullen who, in injury-time, ended the scoring and gave Dublin a handsome six-point win.

Counihan wasn’t exactly fuming but let it be known in no uncertain terms that those players still feeding on their All-Ireland-winning status will be told about it.

“If people are happy with what they’ve done you’ve a problem. I like to think that we haven’t but looking at that there tonight, some fellas will be disappointed with themselves.”

Scorers for Dublin: B Brogan 0-6 (four frees); T Quinn 1-1; K McManamon, B Cahill 1-0 each; D Lally 0-2; D Connolly, D Bastick, B Cullen, J McCarthy 0-1 each.

Scorers for Cork: D Goulding 0-5 (one free, one 45); P O’Neill 0-4; P Kelly, D O’Connor (one free) 0-2 each; D O’Sullivan, A Walsh, F Goold 0-1 each.

Subs for Dublin: D Nelson for Lally (44); B Cullen for Connolly (46); A Brogan for O’Gara (56); P Andrews for Quinn (61); C Murphy for Flynn (66).

Subs for Cork: N Murphy for A O’Connor (46); F Lynch for O’Neill and C Sheehan for Goold (both 56); E Cotter for J O’Sullivan (64).

Referee: David Coldrick (Meath).